Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday November 18, 2008 @05:01PM
from the doubting-thomas dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "If we humans have such big brains, how can we get conned? Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak has an interesting post on Psychology Today in which he recounts how he was the victim of a classic con called 'The Pigeon Drop' when he was a teenager and explains how con men take advantage of the Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System, called THOMAS, a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown. 'The key to a con is not that you trust the con man, but that he shows he trusts you. Con men ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable,' writes Zak. 'Because of THOMAS, the human brain makes us feel good when we help others — this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers.' Zak's laboratory studies have shown that two percent of the college students he tested are 'unconditional nonreciprocators' who have learned how to simulate trustworthiness and would make good con men. Watch a video of Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer running the classic pigeon drop on an unsuspecting victim and see if you wouldn't be taken in by a professional con man yourself."

According to the wikipedia, Oxytocin is responsible for general feel-good behavior such as sexual excitement, trust and bonding, maternal feelings, etc. It's also very involved with the effects of Chocolate and MDMA [wikipedia.org] and, according to aforementioned article, caused spontaneous erections after being injected in rats.

Just be careful before you reach for the MDMA as repeated use may experience a collection of symptoms involving diminished emotions, colloquially known as being an "E-Tard ism".

You mean something like this stuff? [wikipedia.org]. Richard Feynman once observed that some smart people get taken because they don't want to believe they can be fooled. He was referring to people fooled by Uri Geller. He said he was different because "I'm smart enough to know that I'm dumb". Which is one of my favorite quotes of anything.

Some of the more intelligent people are coming up with cons. People of lower intelligence fall for them. No magic here.

Smart people fall for cons too. I knew a guy back in graduate school, finishing up his PhD in CS, smart fellow. He fell for the Three Card Monte [wikipedia.org] the first time he went to New York City.

Some of the more intelligent people are coming up with cons. People of lower intelligence fall for them. No magic here.

Smart people fall for cons too.

Smart or not smart has little to do with it, but many people seem to think "lazy" and "greedy" people are also generally less smart.

Greedy people fall for cons, while people who believe that if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is don't get conned. "Greedy" doesn't have to mean they'd steal money, or run cons themselves. "Greedy" means that if they think they can make a quick buck with no work involved, they will.

In the first linked article, the guy fell for the con because he saw he could get a

The concept of a spectrum is not "directly counter" to a black-and-white perspective. The spectrum exists independent of his point of view. He's cut the spectrum into discrete blocks (i.e, "more intelligent" and "less intelligent"). That's what people with a black-and-white perspective do. It doesn't matter if they acknowledge a spectrum if they don't actually view it as a spectrum.

There's an important difference: "Smart" and "stupid" are absolutes while "more intelligent" and "less intelligent" are not. If I compare two people with IQ 120 and 130 with each other, the 130 one is more intelligent while the 120 one is less intelligent - but the 120 one is not neccessarily stupid. Of course the IQ is just one measure of certain kinds of performance, but it works to illustrate the point.

Also, there are various kinds of smartness. A savvy con man can con a Nobel prize-awarded genius whil

point to either road and ask the man, "if i were to ask you if this road goes to Shelbyville, what would you say?"

if you pointed to the correct road the man will say "yes" regardless of whether he's a habitual truth-teller or a habitual liar.if you pointed to the Ogdenville path, the man will say "no" whether he's a habitual truth-teller or a habitual liar.

The trouble is, I have to get to a job interview. I have a client coming around right now with the cash. Can you do me a favour? I'll split the proceeds of the sale with you, but because I have to go, I'll grab my share now. That fine with you?

Cool.

---

I was trying to think of something serious to say, but honestly, I couldn't. I even read the first article and loaded up the video and second article. I guess I could make a random attack on capitalism as an economic system, but that would probably be unsubsta

Doesn't everyone do this subconsciously, when they feel they would benefit from it? I know i have to stop myself sometimes, when i put myself in "vulnerable mode" to make people trust me more. I don't try to con people, i just do it because it... works?
On the other hand, I'm into computer security. Maybe stuff like that is just part of the "security mindset" Bruce Schneier et. al. espouses?
2% sounds like a surprisingly small figure though.

That is the old "shell game" con. And while I just love that con, it isn't the one I was playing. If you were watching for the switch you would be deeply disappointed.

Also, you obviously don't fall for the old "assume a normal distribution" scam. I would have to play the old "inverted pyramid" scam with you. I just love the old "inverted pyramid" scam. It works especially well with stock newsletters. You can play this game as an inverted pyramid scam, but it only pays off once every 1024 times.

Or, perhaps you are thinking of the fact that in the combinations of heads and tails for a given number of flips, each number of heads (or tails) generates a normal distribution. But, your first 9 flips are an outlier for either 9 or 10 flips. So logic says the next flip would be heads because despi

The fairness of a coin can be modelled by a binomial distribution. If you take the Taylor series expansion of a binomial distribution and then use the first two elements of the expansion to model the binomial you get a normal distribution.

"My research has demonstrated that they have highly dysregulated THOMASes."so in otherwods if you are bastard it is because you have brain damage;)

Seriouly though, does anyone know if this kind of research argues for better or an inborn train as opposed to one the 'grew' later on within a person enviourment. ( otherwise known as raised that way?)

That general line of research might turn out to be useful in answering the nature/nurture question; but it isn't good enough right now. We know that the brain is influenced by genetics; but we also know that it rewires itself like crazy during development, and to a lesser extent for the entire life of the organism. There is also some research out there suggesting that an individual's developmental trajectory can be permanently altered by conditions in utero, which can be affected by, for instance, maternal

If cons work by making us feel good about helping the con man, then how come so many are based on the mark trying to rip off someone? In the pigeon drop, the mark is trying to rip off the con man. In insider-knowledge scams, the mark is trying to rip off honest traders or gamblers. With "white van" scams, the mark thinks he's buying stolen goods.

Someone else said it as well. It is all about "I want." It always has been and it always will be. This is why TV commercials work -- you want whatever they say you want and they do their best to make it look as good as possible. This is why spam works -- they know they are offering something that some people want more than their good senses can control. This is why religion works as well.

It's not about greed. The most greedy is choice #1. Choice #2 was clearly possible, that's "fight", choice #3 is what most humans fall under, even if they delude themselves into thinking that's not true, and choice #4 was "flight".

The con works by making you *trust* the con man. Very different from feeling good about helping. So if the conman makes you believe he trusts you, offers an easy opportunity to rip him off (buy a diamond at a massive discount), you may trust the premise of his offer (e.g. the diamond is real). If he makes you feel good about "helping" him in any substantial way (he needs money for a train ticket), it helps the more honest marks justify it to themselves (I'm making a profit, but I'm also helping the poor man).

Interesting. I didn't realize this was such a well known scam. About 10 years ago in College while walking from my car to class I would occasionally get stopped by slimy looking guys driving around in a van saying they were from "Sound Design", and repeated some ridiculous story about "extra" speakers being ordered, etc. This happened more than once, so I knew there was some form of scam here but didn't find out exactly what until later.

I think it has to do with the return of investment. Only a shady deal can get the chump such riches for doing basically nothing. A scam that promises a 25% return over 30 days and is backed by a major bank and well known will make people a little more thoughtful over their risk assessment. The whole "Too good to be true" mentality kicks in. When there's an element of illegality or shadiness. ..then it seems plausible and you just happen to get "lucky" and got in on it by happenstance. Hit that lucky emotio

I don't easily trust strangers who inexplicably trust me. I'm not easily conned. I guess I have a doubting THOMAS.

I wouldn't have fallen for it for one reason only: I would not have touched the money or the envelope with the money in it. Or the envelope I thought it had the money in it. If there is no personal information in the wallet, yet it seems loaded with money, my paranoia kicks in. If there is personal information inside, then I'd rather find the owner and hand it over.
Somehow, I'd rather earn $300 than steal $1000, though I'd give it back even without the finder's fee.

I have to say, I just moved to Manhattan a few months ago, and in general I haven't noticed a lot of meanness/bastardliness (though presumably *someone* is peeing in the subway entrances). People are in fact generally helpful when it doesn't benefit them at all (providing street and subway directions). Of course, you can't trust me saying this, since now that I'm living here, I'm obviously a conman.

First, I must solicit your strictest confidence in this transaction. This is by virtue of its nature as being utterly confidential and 'top secret'. I am sure and have confidence of your ability and reliability to prosecute a transaction of this great magnitude involving a pending transaction requiring maxiimum confidence.

We are top official of the federal government contract review panel who are interested in imporation of goods into our country with funds which are

That explains all the suspicious "please help me" posts on Craigslist.

One of these days I'm going to open CL and see this:

Dear Esteemed Sir;I represent mYself, a poor Nigerian pe asant with FIVE MILLION CHILDREN to feed. I beg of you please do not send food or it will be STOLEN by corrupt officials. Instead please wire THE SUM OF 10 MILLIION US DOLLARS to [Western Union recipient information deleted for posting to Slashdot] so that I may buy food for my fAamily and pay off the police so they don't rape my

When dealing with $3,000 a light has to go off in your head that says "there are procedures for dealing with this". Go to the police. Tell the guy you'll walk to the nearest police station with him, or that you'll call the non-emergency number with your cel phone. The police will hold the money for a statutory limit, and if nobody claims it, THEN you might get it. YMMV on the laws in your jurisdiction and how honest the cops are.

Now, if you're not a totally honest man a different light goes off in your head. That light says "How can I get this money, nevermind the victim or due process".

A totally honest man doesn't exist. Remember in DnD (2nd edition I believe, wow i'm a nerd but at least I was young) when one of the suggested methods of destroying an artifact item was to have it crushed under the heel of an honest man? I believe one of the other ones was to throw it into the center of the sun.

There is no doubt that functional imaging such as fMRI (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fmri) PET (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positron_emission_tomography) and MEG (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetoencephalography) have been a tremendous boon to the field of neuroscience. But seeing localized activity in the brain and then drawing a conclusion about the mechanisms of behavior is the wrong way to interpret the data. I hate Psychology Today for pulling this crap all the time, activity in the brain is simply data to be interpreted, not a conclusion in itself. This is like when a segment of DNA is implicated in some sort of behavior or developmental trait, and we see the headlines "X gene discovered!!!". The question is simply too complex to answer with that kind of analysis.

We cannot view the brain as a simple modular system, which merely needs a circuit diagram drawn to discover its mysteries. Functional specialization no doubt exists, but in an interconnected and complex way that resists simple explanations of "oh, this part of the brain lit up during this therefore this". Localization alone tells us little, it is only in complement with studies of neurotransmitter mechanisms, single cell recordings, computational theories, and numerous other techniques of brain exploration that any real answers are going to be found. THOMAS doesn't explain anything, its just a piece in the puzzle.

Germany during World War II, for example, most believed and followed Hitler. Germany had some smart people, but they made stupid decisions and fell for Hitler's scam.

The same is true of Democratic and Republican US citizens falling for their candidate's scams. Once elected into office, do you really think they will keep every promise they made and do what they told their supporters they would do?

If it sounds too good to be true, most of the time it isn't true at all, it is a scam.

If, for example, you get an email saying you won the UK lottery chances are it is a scam, or Bill Gates giving out millions if you forward this email to 20 of your friends and family, it is a scam, or someone dying in Nigeria with your last name and has $10 million waiting to be wired to you and need your contact info and banking numbers etc, it is a scam.

If, as the article claims, oxytocin "induces a desire to reciprocate [trust]", whether it could form the basis of some sort of truth serum? Inject some oxytocin into somebody who has something to hide, and introduce this person to an actor who pretends to be very trusting. I wonder if this would encourage the oxytocin-induced person to reveal secrets once sufficient trust is gained by the actor...

But I don't. --It doesn't stop me from endeavoring to be honest, but there are certain types of cons which honest people fall for, perhaps more easily than the corrupt.

Like this whole sham economy we have running around us. Ideas like, paying back the bank interest feels natural because an honest man doesn't want something for nothing. And yet it's arguably one of the biggest, most willfully destructive scams currently going.

Someone tried to con me over the chat (initially via OKStupid) a while back. It wasn't the usual brand of 419 scam (email full of hilarious malapropisms, bizarrely pompous status claims, heavily reliance on affiliation with God, et cetera).

It was personal.

The person put time into it. I'll use 'she' because she presented as a woman, a Dutch woman in her mid 50s. I can usually tell when a guy is trying to pass as a woman in chat as the conversation devolves to sex within about two minutes and thirty seconds; there's zero emotional content.

She was dying of cancer. She was straight. I'm not, but in any case, and in all truth, she wasn't the kind of person I'd choose as a partner. No matter, she seemed like a sweet and decent person. Not overly smart, not stupid. Good at connecting; she liked talking about emotions and the people in her life. So do I. She told me about her husband and how much she'd loved and missed him (he'd died not long before). We talked about all sorts of inconsequential trivia. She talked, off and on, for about three months. She told me about her faith. How sweet - I'm an atheist, but I honestly find the nicer Christians to be good and sincere company (not *you*, you dribbling neocon fuckwits). About half-way through the three months, she said she wanted to arrange a will, and that she had no-one left that she could trust to act as executor. She wanted *me* to play that role. I was surprised and flattered, and not so certain of my own moral compass (I was really down on cash and a student at the time) that I felt comfortable with the idea. I told her I was an atheist (I hadn't brought it up until then - I don't tend to preach). She said it didn't matter; she said that she trusted me. I told her I'd think about it.

She didn't press the issue, until about six weeks later. This time ostensibly from her hospital bed in London (she'd been mobile and functional up until that point).

She underlined her desperation. She talked about practical mechanisms by means of which I could accomplish my role. She made one mistake: she asked for my bank account details. I asked her why she couldn't open a new account on which I would have signing powers. After all, it would keep the finances clean and separate and allow for proof that I'd fulfilled my duties correctly, should need arise. She didn't give a satisfactory answer, and at *that* point, the penny dropped. I felt hurt and stupid. I voiced my feelings. I stopped talking to her.

There was still the nagging doubt that she might have been for-real, so I did nothing beyond this. I continued to feel guilty about the possibility that her story was true until time, and continual analysis of the event, satisfied me that she was full of shit.

Why, though, did she target *me*? I was a *poor* physics student at the time. And why did she spend so much time on it? We probably chatted a total of maybe 16-20 hours. In that time she could have made more money working at McDonalds than she'd have made out of *my* account...

Unless there are other identity-theft related uses for a genuine bank account belonging to a real human. With history.

So explain how a person is greedy without using the brain as a part of that explanation.

In what sense is something like "greed" explained by talking about brain chemicals? What sort of "explanation" is this? How does it clear things up? What is it that you didn't understand about greed before that you do understand after you listen to a guy talk about brain chemicals?

I remember from the early parts of the book Influence: the Science and Practice (awesome book, by the way) that the author pointed out that we're wired to participate in society as efficiently as possible... well, by "we" I don't necessarily mean slashdotters.

Anyway, our brain takes shortcuts to make our interaction with those around us be mostly smooth and beneficial for everyone. These shortcuts can be taken advantage of by bad people to gain our compliance to things we shouldn't comply with. We get conned.

But the author makes a point that these shortcuts are generally a good thing and mostly necessary... we should just beware when something seems fishy.

That's why it bothers me when people use some poor sap that gets taken advantage of to prove that you need to be greedy or a jerk or self-centered to make it through life without being screwed. To hell with that, continue to be kind, self-less, helpful, and trusting... but also listen to those warning bells in the back of your mind that might appear from time to time.

No, those are just the obvious con men. The ones 'everyone' knows about because after it's over 'everyone' goes "How stupid would you have to have been to fall for that."

Believe me, there are plenty of other people out there who are willing to con you that don't rely on your greed.

Ever been the fall guy? The one left holding the bag?

Ever get suckered into buying a lemon car from used car salemen.

Ever been suckered into being 'friend' that gets the 'ugly one' on a double date?

Ever donate to a charity because the guy on the TV asked you too and said "Your dollars can help".

Greed is a tool to catch the greedy. Compasion is the tool used to catch the compasionate. Pride is the tool used to catch the prideful (as in "You are too smart to ever fall for such an obvious con...)

There are plenty of clay feet out there to aim at, greed is just one of them.

Believe me, there are plenty of other people out there who are willing to con you that don't rely on your greed.

Care to point some of them out?

The Craigslist Bad Check scam [consumeraffairs.com], where the con sends a check for several thousand more than the asking price. They'll email you saying that their secretary made a mistake, but they trust you, so go ahead and cash it and send back the difference. It's a bad check, of course, but your bank won't notice for a few days, and then they'll hold you responsible for the difference, plus the check you just sent back.

The mark isn't working on greed. They don't expect to get anything more than the original asking price. The con works purely on feelings of trust.

Not con-man: Hey, my secretary made a mistake on that check and wrote it for too much...can you cash it and send me the difference?
Seller: No, I really need you to send me another check for the correct amount.
Not con-man: Well, then, screw you...I'm gonna stop payment on that check and you don't have to send me the stuff.

See...if you don't agree to these extra terms, even a completely honest buyer might just cost you some profit. Of course, a real con man would say exactly the same

A friend of mine is a finance manager at a car dealership. Two women and a man came in about two months ago with a rather elaborate story. The first woman was married to the man, then fell in love with the second woman. The first woman wanted to buy a car, but had no credit history, although the social security number (and matching drivers license) she had provided was clean. Neither the other woman, or the husband, was willing to cosign. The woman also had all of the appropriate documentation for a credit less customer, addressed bills, paystubs, bank account balances, etc...

That night, the woman left my friend with a hefty down payment check, and the three left in a brand new, $30,000 car. The very next morning, the dealership was faxed the remainder of the information they needed to close out the deal. About two weeks later, when they were verifying the check and logging the deal, the bank let them know that the name on the check didn't match the name on the account. My friend did some digging, left the woman a message, and asked her to get back to him.

At this point, he called me, and told me the story. He hadn't put it together yet, but I couldn't stop laughing. The last thing he said to me, before I broke the news to him, was that the dealership probably wouldn't lose too much since they'd be able to repossess the car before they could put too many miles on it. I explained that they were long gone, and so was the car. It wasn't coming back, it was all a show, none of it was real. He checked out the cell phone, prepaid, checked out the paystub (manager said, "Another one! Have no idea who that is"), checked out the bills, fake account numbers. Everything was fake, the whole deal was a very elaborate hoax.

It's not hard to see why they succeeded. They came in with an elaborate story to distract and disarm. The more you're thinking about lesbians, the less you're thinking about proof. They were able to argue amongst themselves to great effect the entire time to further distract (e.g. "You left me for her, its not my problem, I had all you needed right here"). They also had all the answers and all the right explanations, there was no need to come back, they had all the information they required with them, and as they could see from the credit report, they knew what to bring because they'd already hit many other dealerships in the area.

The con artists also sweetened the deal for the dealership. My friend tried to reject the deal, but when the general manager found out that they were buying the car for sticker price with a maintenance plan, a very high profit deal, he told him to go ahead with it. They also took away the ability to verify the deal, and the incentive to verify the next day. They came in late in the day, when the banks were closed, and her job would have been closed, so they would have to take most of the information presented at face value. In addition, the additional information they requested was faxed over the next day to relieve suspicion.

The last thing they relied on was the most important, and that is the reluctance of those who have been scammed to report it. My dad uncovered a scam several years ago, where 21 people were taken for between $100k and $1M each over the course of a year, by a boat dealer. The dealer was never convicted, not because of the evidence, but because not a single person was willing to testify, publicly admitting their mistake. And before you think it couldn't happen to you, consider that even Al Capone was taken for $5,000 in the 1920s. Viktor Lustig approached Capone and offered to double his investment of $50,000 in 60 days. In 60 days, Lustig returned all $50,000 to Capone, and apologized that it didn't work, although he very much needed the money. Capone decided to give Lustig $5,000. What Capone didn't know, was that this is what Lustig had planned all along, he had never done anything but deposit the money in a bank account. In another case, Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower to

It was around the end of the month and I was going from bank to bank (on the same street) in the financial district, making tranfers among various accounts I had. I was dressed in a business suit and was carrying a briefcase.

After finishing, I sat down at a bus shelter bench (with glass at my back) and my left hand on my briefcase. I hear a knock on the glasss behind me and to the right and turn my head just in time to see a hand pointing at a pile of bills on the sidewalk behind me.

I look around, and seeing nobody there, I turn around and bend down to reach for the cash, releasing my hold on my briefcase. After collecting the bills, I put my hand back on my briefcase and then I look at it... it had been switched.

Luckily, my briefcase contained only a pen and some pieces of ID. In exchange I got around 100 bucks and a new briefcase.

I admit I've been tempted to intentionally replicate this reverse pigeon drop.

Trust in paper documents seems to be lagging way behind the ability to forge them. How hard is it to scan/photoshop/print a utility bill these days?

I would say very hard.
Let me present to you, the HP PSC 2355, combined printer/scanner/hairdrier.

It won't scan unless I have toner in the printer. In addition, some errors present themselves, requiring you to press the ok button. Once you do this, it presents the same info again, requiring you to press the ok button...

The HP PSC 2355: "you just can't reason with it, and it simply will not stop until you are dead"

Most con men aren't particularly smart and 99.9% of all cons aren't particularly clever.

This is why you need to differentiate between "intelligent" and "clever". They are really two different kinds of smart people, the "clever" people are good at answering quickly, mostly tackle simple problems and can rapidly adapt to changes in their environment. These are the fast talkers and charismatic types and include the con artists and businessmen.

Heh, the thread as I read it right now is a perfect picture of the moderation system at work. The flamebait (the AC) has been marked insightful, the insightful comment (westlake) has been marked flamebait. Bravo!

Remember how complex the task of navigating the world in any sort of functional manner is. As evidence look at how successful AI is in navigating across a room with furniture. For all its flaws, the mind has an amazing capacity to navigate it's environment and accomplish goals, even if you don't agree with said goals. Every brain is a marvel, even as screwed up as we are.